How to Enable the Home Section in the Windows 11 Settings App

Microsoft introduced the Settings app in Windows 8 and has worked to improve its overall usability ever since. Its design has gone through several changes, and the new design in Windows 11 looks much better thanks to better organization of features and a cleaner user interface.

This is not just a cosmetic change, though, because many utilities and items from Control Panel have moved into the Settings app. Microsoft has also released another version of the Settings app that adds a new Home section and layout to help you reach the most commonly used settings. Here is how to enable it on your PC.

Follow these steps to enable and use the Home section in the Settings app:

1. Download the latest Windows 11 Insider build and ViveTool

The new Settings app with the Home section is currently available in Windows 11 Insider Dev build 23493. That means you need to update a PC enrolled in the Dev channel to build 23493 or later. If you don't want to enroll your PC in the Windows Insider program, or if you want to try the build in a virtual machine, there is an easy way to do it.

You can use UPP DUMP to download Windows 11 Insider builds without signing up for the Windows 11 Insider program. Once the download finishes, you will need to do an in-place upgrade or create a bootable USB drive to install the Dev build on your PC.

The enhanced Settings app with the Home section is not available out of the box in build 243943. So you have to use Vivetool to turn on the experimental feature. All you need to do is download ViveTool from GitHub.

When the download finishes, use File Explorer to go to the download location and extract the contents of the archive into a folder named "Vive". Move the folder containing Vivetool to the C drive.

2. Enable the Home section in the Settings app

After you have updated your Windows 11 PC and installed Vivetool, follow these steps:

1. Press Win + R to open the Run dialog box. Type cmd into the text box and press Ctrl + Shift + Enter at the same time.

2. The User Account Control window will appear. Click the Yes. button.

3. First, you need to switch to the drive where you extracted Vivetool. Type cd c: in the Command Prompt window and press the Enter key to run the command.

4. Now you need to switch to the folder that contains Vivetool. Since this article extracted the tool into a folder named “Vive”, the command in this example becomes: cd vive.

5. Type vivetool and press the Enter key to check whether the tool runs properly.

6. Now type the following commands and press the Enter key to run them one at a time:

vivetool /enable /id:42058345 
vivetool /enable /id:42058313

7. Close the Command Prompt window.

8. Restart your PC to apply the changes Vivetool made to the Settings app.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Phát Lâm

Website Administrator, Hung Phat Laptop

I'm Phát Lâm, CEO of Hungphatlaptop.com and an IT specialist with years of experience in PC reviews, technology infrastructure and networking. With a deep understanding of hardware configurations, system performance and market trends, I focus on recommending the right solution so every customer gets a device that fits their needs, delivers strong performance, keeps costs in check and offers real value.

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